Confused about the Calories

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mityjoe67
mityjoe67 Posts: 15 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi,

I am sure I am not the only person to have noticed this, so I am hoping to get a little guidance. I went out to lunch today to a particular restaurant that has great chicken wings. When I went to plug it into my diary, I found for this restaurant they had listings of chicken wings at least 4 or 5 with different calories. One was really really high and another I thought was a little to low. Normally I said with the high side, figure better to be sade than sorry, but this has happened now on a few occasions. Does anyone have suggestions on how to handle? It is unfortunate when adding foods comments or more info isn't added to know to try and make a better decision. I actually even tried to do a google search on the calories and most pointed to MFP, which well, doesn't help me. lol

Thanks for any help/tips

Replies

  • taunto
    taunto Posts: 6,420 Member
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    When you search for food in the database, best to check for foods that don't have a * in front of it. The * indicates that the enteries were done by somebody who isn't a staff and have a high chances of being flawed.

    But you might still face some issues. I live in Asia and most of the foods we have in the database are highly flawed. Add to that the fact that every dish is prepped a thousand ways and most of the restaurants have different portions etc and you have a problem. Try to do a google search for calories to get a better idea if you feel there is a problem in the database provided calories. After a while of being on MFP, I have learned a decent bit about the foods to have a feel of how much a particular food should cost in terms of calories.

    Another big tip is to always see how the macros of your entry is. Some foods won't have any macros in it at all. Those are obviously flawed and should be neglected right away. The right entry would not only have macros but when you break down the macros into calories, they'll add up to the calories provided by them (or be close to it at least)

    For reference:


    1g carbohydrate — 4 calories
    1g protein — 4 calories
    1g fat — 9 calories
  • hafbreed02
    hafbreed02 Posts: 28
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    Hi,

    I am sure I am not the only person to have noticed this, so I am hoping to get a little guidance. I went out to lunch today to a particular restaurant that has great chicken wings. When I went to plug it into my diary, I found for this restaurant they had listings of chicken wings at least 4 or 5 with different calories. One was really really high and another I thought was a little to low. Normally I said with the high side, figure better to be sade than sorry, but this has happened now on a few occasions. Does anyone have suggestions on how to handle? It is unfortunate when adding foods comments or more info isn't added to know to try and make a better decision. I actually even tried to do a google search on the calories and most pointed to MFP, which well, doesn't help me. lol

    Thanks for any help/tips

    your always closer when you go with the highest #.....99.9% of fast food is always recorded incorrectly anyhow, and most don't take in to account....sauces, dips, or any other type of add on....most of the time it's best to look it up on the establishments website, but even they tend to fudge the #'s......good luck!
  • mityjoe67
    mityjoe67 Posts: 15 Member
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    Thanks for the tips..

    I never thought about checking out the macros. Hopefully that will help me figure it out..

    That was one of the reasons I went with Higher, just because I figured it would be better to error on the high side. Just frustrating becasue there shouldn't be so many different entries for the same food item or at least give a date or an explanation at where they got the info from.

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